In the world of professional marketers, there is an ongoing debate about the value of branding and its worth as an investment for you, the small business owner. Many agency and media reps tell clients, "You need to get your name out there and build your brand so that when a prospect has a need for your product or service, they will think of you."



Those of us in the direct response crowd disagree with that thought process because the typical small business owner usually lacks the resources to wait for prospects to need their service. We believe marketing investments should generate leads or clients with branding being an added benefit of the investment.

Pure brand or image advertising makes it nearly impossible to measure the return and effectiveness. In my mind, if I am going to invest in my company, whether it is in advertising, direct mail, new equipment or staff, I want to know my return on my investment and believe clients should also be able to do so.

Is there a strategy that appeases both viewpoints that builds a brand and delivers hungry prospects? Is there a small business target marketing strategy that accomplishes both objectives? Absolutely!

The way to make it happen is with the Unique Selling Proposition, of USP. A good USP is pure marketing gold and creates a compelling reason for the consumer to act immediately. They will think, "I need this" or "I need more information about this amazing product."

Let's go back a couple of decades so we can illustrate this point with a couple well-known examples: If Federal Express just ran ads that were about their name and logo, they would have gotten name recognition, but that's about all. Federal Express was pretty clear about their USP when they said, "When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight."

Did the compelling USP work? I think we can agree it went over rather well.

Will it work for a small business? Well, several years ago, a man named Tom Monohan was in one of the most competitive businesses that also traditionally has one of the highest failure rates - The restaurant business. He was in the most competitive arena of this market - pizza. The marketing message Tom created was a lot more compelling than the name of his pizza parlor is." His message was, "Fresh hot pizza in thirty minutes or less - or it's free." I think we can agree that Dominos Pizza did well with their USP!

People, businesses included do not care about you, your name or your brand. They only care about what is in it for them and what your product or service will do for them. Once they've made the decision to buy, your name increases in psychological importance, but not until then.

Remember that your small business target marketing has very specific objectives and they are to deliver prospects or clients. If they are not designed to do so, you can either hope that you will get more clients or throw out useless ads and switch to ads and marketing designed to bring you profits.

The marketing designed to generate profits starts with your USP and tells your targeted prospect why they should buy from you and do so now.

Copyright (c) 2008 Paul Flood Marketing, LLC